


Den Haag

by itstonedme



Series: Beguilement Verse [6]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU. Prostitution. Sub/dom role play., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:07:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern day AU, set in The Hague. Viggo is a successful businessman who has a particular itch that very few can scratch. Then he meets Dom.  Written for Slashababy 2010.  Warning: abusive head games.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: A work of fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Den Haag

_The Hague_

It is a Friday night, the end of a work week that had brought Viggo into town from his home in Denmark.  He will return there the next morning, but not before he completes one more engagement.  For that, he has arrived at a favourite restaurant whenever he is in Den Haag, which is often.  The maitre d' is there to greet him ("It is always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Mortensen") and he is taken to his table, set for two, near the back of the room by the window.  Music plays in the background, the type of quiet European melody that lends itself to the low hum of diners' conversations and the chime of good china and crystal.  The decor is contemporary, the lighting low, the carpets rich to muffle noise.  Viggo chooses the chair facing the room so that he might watch for the arrival of his guest.  When the table service comes around, he orders an _aperitif_ \-- Campari and soda -- and waits.

Twenty minutes pass and so has the time of the reservation, and Viggo begins to wonder if there might have been a miscommunication.  He has nearly finished his cocktail when he notices a young man speaking with the maitre d' who in turn looks over to Viggo, head nodding.  The young man turns his way as well and politely waves off the maitre d' so that he might find his way to the table on his own.  

This is a blind date, for both of them, one arranged through a mutual friend.  Not a lot of information had been given to Viggo when he'd called Ian up.  "You'll like him," Ian had said.  "I think you'll like him a lot."  

Viggo is a man of details, of observing them and attending to them, and it has made him very successful in his line of work and in life overall.  He pays attention to how the young man approaches, his right hand tucked casually in his trouser pocket, his movement comfortable, with purpose but not swagger.  

He's much younger than Viggo had anticipated, perhaps only in his mid-twenties, and Viggo has a brief moment of doubt.  He's not disappointed exactly, because it's too early to tell, but it is not what he had expected.  And this fellow is smaller than expectations as well.   But he is compact, and well-groomed, and he wears his finely pinstriped suit very, very well.

"V.?"

Viggo looks up with a small smile and nods, extending his hand.  Smoky kohl-rimmed eyes look back at him, sharply focussed. Viggo makes note of the pierced ear with small gold ring, the shaggy streaked hair style, facial features that he wouldn't consider handsome but which are nonetheless pulled together by the intelligent cast of the young man's eyes.  But right now, there is no pleasure in those eyes, only an unblinking intensity that throws Viggo off his guard, something he doesn't feel very often, not being who he is, not doing what he does.  

The young man does not acknowledge the offered hand.  "What made you think I would wish to meet you here?" he asks from where he stands, in a voice low and controlled.

Viggo frowns, not understanding either the question or the tone.  "I'm sorry?" he asks, tilting his head.  "It is Dominic, isn't it?"

Dom ignores the question and carefully touches the table cloth with his index finger.  "Here.  This restaurant.  In public.  What made you think I would want to be seen here with you?"  

Viggo looks around at diners who continue with their meals completely unaware of this awkward moment.  He is at an utter loss with both the strangeness of this greeting and the hostility behind it.  He looks back at Dom and with a conciliatory quietness says, "I understood this to be the arrangement.  If you would prefer, we can go elsewhere."

Dom stares at him without response.  The moment stretches and Viggo's frown deepens.

"Please," Viggo finally says graciously, because surely Dom is a reasonable person, whatever the knot he's got his mind tied up in at the moment.  "Perhaps you might sit while I finish..."

Dom snaps his fingers sharply, and this now manages to draw a few stares from nearby.  "V., you're not listening," he says quietly, and he raps the table twice with his knuckles before turning and walking away, past the maitre d', whose head pivots back in Viggo's direction, and out of the dining room.  

_Damn,_ Viggo thinks.  He stands, removing the billfold from his vest pocket and hurries towards the exit.

"Mr. Mortensen," the maitre d' says in hushed and urgent tones as Viggo presses several Euros into his hand. "Is everything all right?"

Viggo scans the reception area, but Dom isn't there.  Through the glass doors, he can see him walking to a taxi parked at the curb in front of the restaurant.  "Yes. Something's come up," Viggo smiles thinly, rushed.  "Next time, I will stay to enjoy the Scottish salmon, Temo, I promise. But I must go."

He hurries to leave, waiting with frustrated patience as a group comes through the door ahead of him.  When he gains the sidewalk, Dom is already in the back seat of the cab, on the far side, looking back at him, head ducked below the roof frame to catch Viggo's eyes.  

The door of the cab is open, waiting for him.

Viggo exhales sharply.  He walks to the car and gets in.

*

Nothing is said as the taxi pulls into the flow of light traffic.  It's awkward, both of them crowding their doors, the cab driver indifferent to their presence.  Dom stares out his window, and Viggo glances over, making a discreet but more thorough study.  He's not so far ahead of events that he's imagining how their evening might go.  But he's becoming more comfortable with the idea that Ian has been correct in suggesting that he meet this young man, even if Dominic seems to be in a bit of funk at the moment. There's a cautious attraction coiling inside him, not yet an excitement but still a foreshadowing that Dominic might be able to handle him unpredictably, which would be interesting.

He looks down to the hand Dom is resting on his thigh, fingers splayed right above the knee.  There are letters inked above the first knuckle, above each gold ring on each finger, something Viggo hadn't noticed in the restaurant because they had been hidden in a trouser pocket.  He's curious about it, and in the absence of conversation, he tries to make out what is written in the ebb and flow of shadows thrown by passing street lights.  

"Dominic," he eventually asks because it's fruitless otherwise, both the attempt to read and the silence. "May I ask what you have written there?"

Dom slowly turns, noting the brief jerk of chin to indicate what Viggo means. He doesn't look down, doesn't move his hand or curl his fingers to conceal what he has inscribed there.  "That would be 'Dom,' V." he says, ignoring the question completely and with an absolute lack of affect.  "You with me?"

Viggo marks that this is the third time in the last five minutes that Dominic has dismissed him, and he feels sparred by unseen gloves. It is not necessarily unwelcomed. He looks up at the glittering eyes riveted on him.  "Yes," he says quietly.   

Dom turns back to the street beyond his window.

It's not far to the hotel they are obviously destined for, not the one Viggo has been staying in all week but another, only slightly less grand and similarly low in storeys.  When the taxi pulls up to the entrance, Dom exits his side, breezing past the valet rushing for the door handle and on into the lobby through the door being held open for him.

The driver stops the meter and turns towards Viggo.  "Twelve Euro," he drones.

Viggo hurriedly hands over a twenty and slides out of the car.

"Welcome, sir," the doorman says.  Viggo returns a pressed smile as he moves past.

Dom is halfway across the modest lobby, striding toward a bank of elevators, and Viggo glances about as he follows, looking for faces he might know, thankful to find none.  He catches up with Dom at the elevator.

They enter with several other guests and stand apart, saying nothing.  Dom depresses the button for the top floor.

When they arrive at their room, Dom slips the key card into the reader and once inside, tosses it on the entry table.  It's a nice suite.  The king-size bed has already been turned back, and on the coffee table a bottle of red wine is breathing, a pair of wine glasses and a platter of fruits and cheeses beside it.  Dom plucks a cube of cantaloupe and pops it into his mouth.  He continues into the room, glancing through the bathroom doorway where he flicks the light on and then off, then to the en suite closet, where he looks inside.  He ends at the window, pulling the sheers wide to reveal the lights of the city landscape and the bank of suites on the hotel's other wing.

"Have a seat," Dom says, turning, pointing to the bed.  He returns to the coffee table and inverts one wine glass bowl down, filling the other.   He picks up the cheese shaver and planes a creamy strip from one of the wedges. "This is my favourite," he says, almost amiably, offering none to Viggo.  "From a monastery in Quebec, I'm told. Smells like arse, but it's delicious." 

Viggo makes a small smile at Dom's more relaxed manner, but not for a moment does he dismiss the lupine undercurrent at work in the room. He sits at the foot of the bed and unbuttons his jacket.  A fracturing has begun to spread through him as the first of what he hopes will be many tumblers mentally falls into place.

Dom lays the thin slice on his tongue and chases it with half the glass of wine.  "I suppose you'd be hungry, V., missing out on your six course dinner as it were."

"I'm fine," Viggo says quietly. 

"This isn't a conversation," Dom says flatly.  "You still with me, V.?  What you do is listen. What you do is pay attention to what I say."  He drains his glass, staring at Viggo.  "Just to make sure we're reading from the same script, yeah?"  

Their eyes lock. Viggo finds it quite remarkable how well Dom is able to focus a person's attention. In another world, _his_ world, the one that occupies long days and difficult nights, Viggo might have been able to use him. In that world of secrets and hard questions, of terrible confessions and uncovering crimes that mankind calls atrocities, Dom's concentrated pressure would be a weapon and valuable asset. But they are in _this_ world, the one that escapes that other, and it remains as yet unrealized who will be using whom, and how. 

He nods.

"I suppose you're wondering," Dom continues, topping up his glass, "'what the hell Ian was thinking, matching you up with someone like me, by all appearances a bit of a lightweight."

Viggo's seen enough of humanity not to let the distraction of appearances disguise what lies beneath. And for what it's worth, he trusts Ian's judgment, which means that he must trust Dom.

He says nothing.

"Good, mate, you're catching on.  Now."  Dom settles himself in a chair across from Viggo, close to the window.  "How about you make us both comfortable and lose the suit."

Viggo looks at the bare floor-to-ceiling window. And he begins to see exactly what tack Dom has decided to take with him. Both a hungry thrill and a spike of anxiety stab his gut before he bites them down. That Dom will make him be his own instrument of deliverance is something entirely new to Viggo. It ratchets the evening up to another level altogether, and is far more risky, far more _everything_ than he has prepared himself for. Which, on the one hand, is good. 

But on the other hand, most certainly is not. 

"V., look at me."

Viggo's eyes move slowly from the window to Dom.

"Do we have an agreement here?"

Viggo inhales and lets it out slowly, and decides. "Yes," he says. "Yes."

"No one can see at this angle," Dom says, glancing through the suite's window at the neighbouring bank of rooms.

Which is utter bullshit, and they both know it.

Dom turns back. "Start with the tie."

Viggo's hesitation is only momentary. He hooks a finger behind the tidy Windsor knot and twists his neck, slowly loosening the fabric, letting it slide within itself until it pulls free.  He lays it on the bed.

"Keep going."

With each item of clothing removed and neatly laid on the bedspread beside him, Viggo begins to feel more than just physically naked. The layers are dropping away, and he feels overexposed, like a bled-out photograph. A part of his psyche begins to step outside of itself, to view the scene unfolding as an unseen third. And what it sees is what it always sees: a desperate middle-aged man consumed by the need to strip himself raw, present himself without a shred of intimacy or decency before a stranger, in this case half his age, and for no other reason than his personal craving for debasement. That he is willing to give Dom this power only convinces him yet again of how pathetic he is. 

And the fact that Dom gets it and will probably do his best to turn the screws is all it will take to keep him in this room.

"Here," Dom says as Viggo sits nakedly on the edge of the bed, and he holds out a sleep mask that he's taken from his vest pocket. He shakes it when Viggo hesitates. "Put it on."

Viggo stands and steps forward, reaching for it and slipping it on. It's not what he would have initially wanted, but under the circumstances, he finds it considerate of Dom.

As Viggo stands before him, fully naked, Dom can't help but appreciate that Viggo keeps himself fit. He takes in the muscular slimness. He's not lanky, not sinewy; he's managed to maintain a certain youthfulness in his physique given that he has to be approaching fifty. His cock is ordinary, and there's a little sag to the balls, but Dom's seen worse in younger men. 

"I want you to take a step forward and turn away from me," he says. 

Viggo takes the step and makes a quarter turn.

"Get on your knees."

Viggo sinks to the carpet, a fluid motion that in the silence of the room is marked with the soft clicks of knee and ankle joints.

"Now take both of your hands, place them on your buttocks and spread yourself."

Behind his mask, Viggo closes his eyes and listens as his heart rate skips up a notch. Slowly, his hands creep around to his backside, and he places them and pulls. Cool air washes the tender tissue.

"Lean forward a little," Dom says.  "Let me have a good look."

Viggo flexes his thighs so that he's balanced and tilts forward. Above the soft hum of the room's fan, he can hear Dom's breathing, the movement of his suit's fabric as it shifts against the chair.  

"Thank you," Dom finally says.  "I always wanted to meet a rich asshole."

Viggo exhales sharply at the adolescent cheekiness of the comment, and shakes his head once. A mistake. 

"You find that funny," Dom says with a complete lack of humour, rising from his chair.  "Hands on the floor."  He walks to Viggo's side and slings his leg over his back, seating himself.  The fine weave of the silk and wool suit is cool and soft against Viggo's skin, and Viggo shivers against it and against Dom's leering weight.

"Can you feel that, V.?" Dom asks, grinding his balls down over Viggo's coccyx, sliding back up to the small of his back.  He angles his hips forward so that his half swollen cock nudges down through the fabric against Viggo's back.  "It's an impressive package, I'm not shy to say."

Viggo finds that it is indeed, and the promise of it begins to pool in his groin. 

Dom lays himself along Viggo's back and drapes himself like a somnolent leopard, cheek rubbing along Viggo's nape. "You asked me earlier what I had written on my fingers. Here," he says, and with his chin propped to look over one of Viggo's shoulders, he reaches past Viggo's other shoulder and slides the eye shades up a little so that Viggo can see. "I had to even use my thumb," he points out, splaying his fingers in front of Viggo's face, "because you are very special, V. Look." He angles his right hand, from left to right so that Viggo can make out the letters etched there: F-I-L-T-H.

Viggo says nothing. He's on fire with Dom's mocking arrogance, and his teeth clench tightly against each other.

Dom repositions the shades and reaches under Viggo, taking a peaked nipple between each thumb and index finger, twisting lightly.  Viggo jerks up against him, suppressing a grunt.   "Have you been imagining what it might be like to have me ride you, all thick, slick and hard, in your very tight, very rich arse?" Dom breathes against his ear. "I'll bet you have. I'll bet you've been wondering how very toppy lightweight Dom can be. But guess what, V.? It's not going to happen.  And do you know why? Because I'm rather selective about where I put it my considerable cock. And you..." He pinches sharply, drawing a wince and pained noise, "just don't make the cut."  

His hands leave Viggo and he stands abruptly, returning to the chair and seating himself.  "Back on your knees," he says, and Viggo slowly straightens, head drooped, breath gusting through his nostrils.  "Now shuffle yourself around and face me."

When Viggo has turned, he hears the slow zip of a fly being opened, and his lips reflexively press together in an unconscious refusal.  He's half hard now, and he knows Dom sees this.

Dom takes himself out, laying his cock along the pinstriping.  "Don't get me wrong.  I do like your mouth.  That little scar? Very distinguished."  He gives himself a few leisurely pulls.  "Now I want you to come forward, V., and place your hands behind your back."

Viggo doesn't move.  "Close the curtains, Dom," he whispers. _"Please."_   

"What?" Dom laughs. "Afraid you might see yourself in the _Jutland Post_ tomorrow?  You're wearing a blindfold, mate.  Besides, that's part of the rush for you, isn't it, being seen on your knees made to take some wanker's cock in your mouth.  Fills the old willy, that I can see. Now I want you to come here and to remember that I'm forgiving you that little outburst.  Come," he teases.  "Come find what I keep hidden in my Armani."

Viggo turns blindly towards the window.

" _Now,_ V."

Walking on his knees, Viggo approaches until he feels his chest dust Dom's trouser legs.

"Lean forward just a little more," Dom murmurs.

Viggo's head dips downwards until his chin touches the crotch of Dom's trousers.

Dom has taken himself in hand. At the first brush of velvety cockhead that smears across his lips, Viggo's head jerks back, mouth firmly pressed closed, and Dom fists the back of his head, holding him still. "Wet your lips and open," Dom whispers. 

He lets Viggo gather himself and soon, a tongue slips out, sliding across top and lower lips. Dom presses the hand gripping Viggo's skull forward just a little and with his other hand, introduces his cock into Viggo's mouth, letting him get used to the taste and feel, the idea of what he has to do. Incrementally, he slips himself between the lips, then back.

"Not so bad, then, is it?" he says, prodding the edges of Viggo's mouth.

For Viggo, it's more than bad. It's exactly what's etched on Dom's hand, and because it is, he knows he'll swallow Dom to the root and hate it.

And want it. 

And hate it, and want it, on and on until he can barely stand another minute of it. And then. 

He'll want even more.

Dom's shoulders drop as the heat of Viggo's mouth begins to envelope him, all the tension of the evening slipping away, down into his hips, melting into the soft padding of the chair. "Oh, you're very good," he sighs, his head falling back and eyes closing, hand steady on the back of Viggo's head. On the forward slide, he thrusts deep, and Viggo gags. Dom pulls back and does it again, with the same reaction, and he keeps it up until he sees Viggo let go of his wrists. 

Tighting his grip, he pulls Viggo off to let him catch his breath. "Seeing as we've gotten personal, V., I feel I can ask you this." Viggo is sucking in air, open-mouthed. "I've been wondering why a stand-up bespoke guy like you would need this. I mean, what do you get out of it?" He gently thumbs the scar on Viggo's lip, and Viggo flinches. 

For the first time since they've met, Viggo retreats. His initial thought is that his reasons aren't any of Dom's business. But then he realizes this may be part of Dom's game, pushing this particular button. "It's complicated," he says, trying to steady his breath.

"Oh, I can see that," Dom agrees. "No fucking news there." He's actually surprised that Viggo has given him that much, seeing how close his question has come to the line. He's also surprised at how hard he's become, given the little stimulation he's received. If he let him, Viggo could pull an orgasm out of him within the next minute or two. "Would you like me to come on your face?" Dom asks.

Viggo's top lip, the side with the little scar, spasms for an instant. 

"I saw that, V.," Dom says, again touching the lip with his thumb. "You don't even like the thought of that, do you? Fair enough, consider me magnanimous. If we're to be frank, I don't much like it myself. Sit up."

Viggo falls back onto his haunches, his breath evening out, hands falling away from the small of his back to rest quietly on his thighs. Dom removes a pocket hankie and wipes himself, then tucks his cock back into his trousers.  He closes a hand over the hardness there and breathes deeply, willing the fullness to ease.  "Go and stand at the window," he says evenly.   

Viggo's masked face freezes.  "Don't," he pleads.

"Go to the window, V."

Viggo stands, shakily.  He turns towards the large floor-to-ceiling pane that he remembers being perhaps six steps away, maybe eight, but he doesn't make any effort to move.  Several seconds drag out with just the sounds of their breaths disturbing the quiet.  If he is honest -- and it's moments like this when self-honesty is both closest and furthest from his mind -- he's horrified, and revulsion has turned his legs to lead, incapable of taking that first step.

"You know you'll do it," Dom says quietly.  "There is nothing between you and that glass."  And they both know he's not speaking only of furniture.

"Will you at least turn off the lights?" Viggo asks.   _One concession,_ he thinks desperately because isn't it all about negotiation when two people are at an impasse?  Give something to get something in return?  

"I don't think so, V.  Where would be the fun in that?"

The first step unbalances Viggo and his arms lift to center himself.  With the next step, they swing forward, until he has closed the distance and feels the smooth coolness of glass beneath his fingertips.

"Excellent," Dom says, standing up.  He comes up behind Viggo, running his fingers lightly along his spine, noting the ridges of bone and tendon, the jerk and tremble as they're touched.  "You can't see them, V. And maybe they can't see you. Maybe those dark rooms across the way are empty. Or maybe the people in those rooms have decided to sit in the dark so that they can follow along on the quiet. We'll never know. Now give me your left hand."

When Viggo does, tentatively, Dom turns it palm up and reaches into his trouser pocket, removing a small bottle of lubricant, flipping the lid and drizzling a thimbleful onto the skin's surface.  "Cup it," he tells Viggo and asks for the other hand, moving behind him to take it and prepare it in the same manner.  "There," he finishes, running his thumb along the closed cap and pocketing the bottle.  "Now you're ready."

Viggo swallows a moan.

Dom slips his arms around Viggo's waist, feeling the tension as Viggo adjusts to how he presses against his back.  He smoothes his hands over the plane between Viggo's hip bones, brushing upwards into the light matting of chest hair.  "I'll be able to see you in the glass," Dom breathes. "You're being watched everywhere."  He kisses a patch just to the left of a shoulder blade.  "Right," he says.  "Left's for your bollocks and right's for your prick, unless, of course, you'd rather switch it up.  It's your call."

Viggo can picture himself, exposed for what he is to the adjacent wing of rooms descending to the street and the concourse and the parking area below where people are coming and going, perhaps looking up and seeing his silhouetted body like some obscene version of Christ bestowing mercy on the masses. And while the shame and embarrassment are nearly unbearable, it's his particular jones, his particular roulette, the one that owns him in its own complicated, inexplicable way. It's fucked up like self-flagellation is fucked up, but when this is done, the demons that drove him to this night will be quiet, and he'll be drained and cleansed until they rustle again. He begins to grind out a frustrated, wounded noise as his arms fight to obey.

"Look at it this way," Dom murmurs against his back.  "You can get it over with in the next few minutes -- and I'm not making any judgments on how fast you blow off, mate -- or you can string it out over the course of the next hour.  But come what may, come you will."

Slowly, Viggo's arms sink to his side, his cupped, greasy palms reaching down and finding himself. At the first touch, his stomach rolls over, a sickening feeling that he struggles with, breathing deeply through his nostrils. But it soon settles as the silky slip of warmed gel and hand pressure begin to pull the blood to his cock and testicles, Dom's heat at his back, and he draws into himself and gives himself over to chasing his climax because that's all that's left for him. When he comes, not long after, it's a relief and a capitulation, and his cum erupts over his fist, some of it finding the pane before he collapses to his knees, released from Dom's benevolent grasp, a palm on the glass smearing his awful descent. 

*

Dom walks over and kills the table lamp illuminating the room. From the armoire, he removes the blanket on the top shelf, and shakes it loose, draping it over Viggo's bent shoulders. He goes into bathroom and wets a face cloth under the running hot water tap, wringing it tight and snagging a hand towel. He returns to Viggo, first wiping the spunk and greasy streak of hand print from the glass, then drawing the sheers and the heavier drapes. 

"Hey," he says quietly, hunkering down beside him. 

Viggo hasn't moved from where he sagged to the carpet, hands curled loosely upon his bare thighs. His body and mind are still, turned inwards, his breaths shallow and quick. If he has heard Dom, he gives no indication.

Taking each limp hand in turn, Dom wipes them clean, then dries them with the hand towel, dropping both cloths onto the carpet when he's done.  He slips the mask up onto Viggo's forehead and removes it; the lashes and creases below Viggo's eyes are wet, but his eyes are opened, unfocussed on some point near the hem of the drapery in front of him. Dom strokes along the back of Viggo's head, his hand coming to rest on the nape of his neck, and he gently massages it, fingers and palm working into rigid muscles damp with sweat.  He's concerned; by his own reckoning, the last hour's been a bitch. "How are you doing?" he asks.

_Hollow,_ Viggo thinks, the pressure of Dom's hand working to ground him. _Empty, Dominic. You've wiped me clean, and for that, I am grateful._

"V.?"

"I'm okay," Viggo whispers.  He does not trust that he will find anymore than this morsel of his voice at the moment. But his breathing is becoming steadier, deeper; the room, and the objects and person within it, are slowly returning to him. 

Dom reaches and pulls the edge of the blanket across so that it closes on Viggo's lap. "Did I push too hard?"

Viggo's breath gusts between dry lips, and he slides a glance sideways, the shadow of a smile weakly creasing his eyes. "It was close."

Dom looks at him, weighing Viggo's words. He doesn't need to press for reassurance, nor does he need to offer an apology. What's done is done. "You didn't safe-word on me," he tells him.  "You did well."

"So did you," Viggo replies. In the morning, he will call Ian and tell him so. For now, though, he is exhausted. His eyes fall to the blanket Dom has pulled over his lap, covering his nakedness, and his fingers curl around the edge of it so that he might hold it on his own.

"Do you want me to order you something to eat before I leave?"

Viggo shakes his head. The only thing he has an appetite for at the moment is his own hotel room, a hot bath, and a bed. He'll not be staying long himself.

"Do you need me to get you anything?"

"I'll be fine," Viggo says.  Dom's questions and presence aren't necessarily unwelcomed, but he is no longer necessary. They are finished. "You should go." 

Dom tucks the blanket more closely. He's not really comfortable leaving Viggo like this.

"I'll be all right, Dominic," Viggo says, turning to him with a wan smile, sensing the hesitation.

Dom finally nods.  "Travel home safely, V.," he says, and he stands.

"Dominic," Viggo says, stopping him, and Dom looks back.  "Thank you."

Dom's hand lands lightly on his shoulder before he turns for the doorway. 

*

_Amsterdam_

"You're quiet today," Elijah observes the next afternoon.  He and Dom have met up for a late morning tennis game and are now sitting in the park across from the court, Elijah enjoying his post-cardio cigarette, Dom tossing salt licorice gums in the air, trying to catch them in his mouth.   

"Thoughts, man," Dom says.  

Elijah glances over at him. "Everything go all right in Den Haag?"

Dom stops tossing. "Apparently. Client gave Ian a sterling report. But it was a weird fucking gig." He turns to Elijah. "Older, good-looking Danish bloke. Real quiet, with some kind of connection to the World Court.  A decent enough guy, you know? But he was into this twisted humiliation thing."  He stops, frowning at the memory of it.  "You know that's not me."

Elijah exhales a ribbon of smoke, watching the light breeze catch it.  "Dom," he says. "When is it ever about 'us'?"  

Dom rolls his eyes and snorts in agreement.  Elijah smiles at the disappearing smoke, all Yoda-like.

"You okay, though?"  

"Yeah," Dom says, tossing another licorice.  "Always."


End file.
